Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Conspectus of Hegel’s BookLectures On the Historyof Philosophy:

Volume XIII. Volume I of The History of Philosophy.History of Greek Philosophy

Written:1915Source:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th Edition, Moscow, 1976,Volume 38, pp. 247-268Publisher:Progress PublishersFirst Published:1930 inLenin Miscellany XIITranslated:Clemence DuttEdited:Stewart SmithTranscription & Markup:Kevin GoinsPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive (2008).You may freely copy, distribute, display and 
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Note that this document has undergone special formating to ensure that 
	Lenin’s sidenotes fit on the page, marking as best as possible 
	where they were located in the original manuscript.

VOLUME XIII.VOLUME I OFTHE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY

“Anaximander (610-547 B. C.) supposesman to develop from a fish.” (213)

...“Hence the determinations are dry,destitute of process, undialectical, and sta-tionary....” (244)

This refers to the general ideas of thePythagoreans;—“number” and its sig-nificance, etc. Ergo: it is said in regardto the primitive ideas of the Pythago-reans, their primitive philosophy; their“determinations” of substance, things,the world, are “dry, destitute of process(movement), undialectical.”

Tracing predominantly thedialecticalinthe history of philosophy, Hegel cites the

views of the Pythagoreans: ...“one, addedto even, makes odd (2+1 = 3);—addedto odd, it makes even (3+1 = 4);—it”(Eins[3])
	  “has the property of making ge-rade (= even), and consequently it mustitself be even. Thus unity contains in it-self different determinations.” (246)

Musical harmony and the philosophy ofPythagoras:

“The subjective, and, in the case of hear-ing, simple feeling, which, however, existsinherently in relation, Pythagoras has at-tributed to the understanding, and he at-tained his object by means of fixed deter-minations.” (282)

Pp. 265--266: the movement of the heav-

enly bodies—their harmony—the har-mony of thesingingheavenly spheresinaudible to us (in thePythago-reans): Aristotle,De coelo, II, 13(and 9)[4]:

...“Fire was placed by the Pythagoreansin the middle, but the Earth was madea star that moved around this central bodyin a circle....” But for them this fire wasnot the sun.... “They thus rely, not onsensuous appearance, but on grounds....These ten spheres”

ten spheres or orbitsor movements of the ten planets: Mer-cury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Sun,Moon, Earth, the Milky Way and theGegenerde[5](—antipode?) invented “foran even number,” for 10[6]

“like all thatis in motion, make a sound; but eachmakes a different tone, according to thedifference in its size and velocity. Thisis determined by the different distances,which bear a harmonious relationship toone another, in accordance with musicalintervals; by this means a harmonioussound (music) arises in the moving spheres(world)....”

Concerning the soul, the Pythagoreansthought “die Seele set: die Sonnenstäub-chen”[7](p. 268) (= dust particle, atom)(Aristotle,De anima, I, 2).”[8]

An allusionto the struc-ture ofmatter!

In the soul—seven circles (elements)as in the heavens. Aristotle,De ani-ma, I, 3—p. 269.

And here immediately are recounted thefables that Pythagoras (who had takenfrom the Egyptians the doctrine of the im-mortality of the soul and the transmi-gration of souls) related about himself, thathis soul had dwelt 207 years in other people,etc., etc. (271)

NB: the linking of thegermsof scien-tific thought with fantasy à la religion,mythology. And nowadays! Likewise,the same linking but the proportionsof science and mythology are different.

More on the theory of numbers of Pytha-goras.“Numbers, where are they? Dispersedthrough space, dwelling in independencein the heaven of ideas? They are notthings immediately in themselves, for athing, a substance, is something quiteother than a number—a body bears noresemblance to it.” 254Quotation|from Aristotle?—Met-aphysik, I, 9, is it not? From SextusEmpiricus? Unclear|.

Pp. 279-280—the Pythagoreans accept the

ether(...“A ray penetrates from thesun through the dense and cold ether,”etc.)

Thus theconjectureabout the etherhas existed for thousands of years, re-maining until now aconjecture. Butat the present time there are alreadya thousand times moresubsurface chan-nelsleading to a solution of the prob-lem, to a scientific determination ofthe ether.

In speaking of the Eleatic school, Hegelsays aboutdialectics:

...“We here” (in der eleatischen Schule[10])“find the beginning of dialectics, i.e.,simply the pure movement of thoughtin Notions; likewise we see the oppositionof thought to outward appearance or sen-suous Being, or of that which is implicitto the being-for-another of this implicit-ness, and in the objective existence we seethe contradiction which it has in itself,or dialectics proper....” (280) See the nextpage.[11]

Here are essentially two determinations(two characteristics, two typical features;Bestimmungen, keine Definitionen[12]) ofdialectics[13]:

α) “the pure movement of thoughtin Notions”;β) “in the (very) essence of objects(to elucidate) (to reveal) the con-tradiction which it (this essence)has in itself (dialecticsproper).”

In other words, this “fragment” of He-gel’s should be reproduced as follows:Dialectics in general is “the pure move-ment of thought in Notions“ (i.e., puttingit without the mysticism of idealism:human concepts are not fixed but areeternally in movement, they pass intoone another, they flow into one another,otherwise they do not reflect living life.The analysis of concepts, the study ofthem, the “art of operating with them”(Engels)[14]always
	  demands study of themovementof concepts, of their inter-connection, of their mutual transitions).

In particular, dialectics is the studyof the opposition of the Thing-in-itself(an sich), of the essence, substratum, sub-stance—from the appearance, from “Be-ing-for-Others.” (Here, too, we see a tran-sition, a flow from the one to the other: theessence appears. The appearance is essen-tial.) Human thought goes endlessly deeperfrom appearance to essence, from essence ofthe first order, as it were, to essence ofthe second order, and so onwithoutend.

Dialectics in the proper sense is thestudy of contradictionin the very essenceof objects:not only are appearances tran-sitory, mobile, fluid, demarcated onlyby conventional boundaries, but thees-senceof things is so as well.

Sextus Empiricus presents the point ofview of the Sceptics as follows:

...“Let us imagine that in a house inwhich there are many valuables, therewere those who sought for gold by night;each would then think that he had foundthe gold, but would not know for certainwhether he had actually found it. Thusphilosophers come into this world as intoa great house to seek the truth, but werethey to reach it, they could not tellwhether they had really attained it....”(288-289)

Xenophanes (the Eleatic) said:

“Did beasts and lions only have hands,Works of art thereby to bring forth, asdo men,They would, in creating divine forms,give to themWhat in image and size belongs to them-

selves....” (289-290)

“What especially characterises Zeno isdialectics, which ... begins with him....”(302)

“We find in Zeno likewise trueobjectivedialectics.” (309)

(310: on the refutation of philosophicsystems: “Falsity must not be demonstrat-ed as untrue because the opposite is true,but in itself....”)

“Dialectics is in general α) external dia-lectics, in which this movement is differ-ent from the comprehension of this move-

ment; β) not a movement of our intelli-gence only, but what proceeds from thenature of the thing itself, i. e., from thepure Notion of the content. The formeris a manner of regarding objects in sucha way that reasons are revealed and aspectsof them shown, by means of which allthat was supposed to be firmly fixed, ismade to totter. There may be reasons whichare altogether external too, and we shallspeak further of this dialectics when deal-ing with the Sophists. The other dialectics,

however, is the immanent contemplationof the object: it is taken for itself, withoutprevious hypothesis, idea or obligation,not under any external conditions, laws,grounds. We have to put ourselves rightinto the thing, to consider the object initself and to take it in the determina-tions which it has. In regarding it thus,it” (er) (sic!) “shows from itself that it con-tains opposed determinations, and thustranscends itself; this dialectics we moreespecially find in the ancients. Subjec-

tive dialectics, which reasons from exter-nal grounds, does justice when it is grantedthat: ‘in the correct there is what is notcorrect, and in the false the true as well.’True dialectics leaves nothing whateverto its object, as if the latter were defi-cient on one side only; but it disintegratesin the entirety of its nature....” (p. 311)

With the “principle of development” inthe twentieth century (indeed, at the endof the nineteenth century also) “all areagreed.” Yes, but this superficial, notthought out, accidental, philistine “agree-ment” is an agreement ofsuch a kindasstifles and vulgarises the truth.—If every-thing develops, then everything passes fromone into another, for development as iswell known is not a simple, universal andeternalgrowth, enlargement(respective dim-inution), etc.—If that is so, then, in thefirst place, evolution has to be under-stoodmore exactly,as the arising andpassing away of everything, as mutualtransitions.—And, in the second place,ifeverythingdevelops, does not thatapply also to the most generalconceptsandcategoriesof thought? If not, it meansthat thinking is not connected with being.If it does, it means that there is a dialec-tics of concepts and a dialectics of cogni-tion which has objective significance. +

“Zeno’s treatment of motion was aboveall objectively dialectical....” (p. 313)

...“Movement itself is the dialectic ofall that is....” It did not occur to Zenoto deny movement as “sensuous certainty,”it was merely a question “nach ihrer (move-ment’s) Wahrheit” (of the truth of move-ment). (313) And on the next page, wherehe relates the anecdote how Diogenes theCynic, of Sinope, refuted movement bywalking, Hegel writes:

...“But the anecdote continues that, whena pupil was satisfied with this refutation,Diogenes beat him, on the ground that,since the teacher had disputed with reasons,the only valid refutation is one derivedfrom reasons. Men have not merely to sat-isfy themselves by sensuous certainty, butalso to understand....” (314)

Zeno has four ways of refuting motion:1. That which is moving to an end must

first coverhalfof the path. And ofthis half, again firstitshalf, and soonad infinitum.

Aristotle replied: space and timeare infinitely divisible (δννάμει[17])(p. 316), but not infinitely divided(ένεργεία[18]), Bayle (Dictionnaire,[19]Vol. IV, article Zeno) calls this replyof Aristotle’spitoyable[20]and says:

...“ifone drew an infinite numberof lines on a particle of matter, onewould not thereby introduce a divisionthat would reduce to an actual infin-ity that which according to him wasonly a potential infinity....”

And Hegel writes (317): “Diessiistgut!”[21]

i.e.,ifone carried out theinfinitedivision to the end!!

...“The essence of space and time is mo-tion, for it is universal; to understandit means to express its essence in the form

of the Notion. As unity of negativity andcontinuity, motion is expressed as the No-tion, as thought; but neither continuitynor discontinuity is to be posited as theessence....” (pp. 318--319)

“To understand means to express in theform of notions.” Motion is the essenceof space and time. Two fundamental con-cepts express this essence: (infinite) con-tinuity (Kontinuitä) and “punctuality”(= denial of continuity,discontinu-ity). Motion is the unity of continuity(of time and space) and discontinuity (oftime and space). Motion is a contra-diction, a unity of contradictions.

Überweg-Heinze, 10th edition, p. 63(§ 20), is wrong when he says that Hegel“defends Aristotle against Bayle.” Hegelrefutes both the sceptic (Bayle) and theanti-dialectician (Aristotle).Cf. Gomperz,Les penseurs de laGrèce, p ...[22], the forcedrecognition, underthe lash, of the unity of contradictions,without recognising dialectics (owing tocowardice of thought)....

2. Achilles will not overtake the tortoise.

“First the half” and so on endlessly.Aristotle answers: he will overtakeit if he be permitted “to overstep thelimits.” (320)And Hegel: “This answer is cor-rect and contains all that can besaid” (p. 321)—for actually the halfhere (at a certain stage) becomes the“limit”....

...“If we speak of motion in general, wesay that the body is in one place and thenit goes to another; because it moves it isno longer in the first, but yet not in the

second; were it in either it would be atrest. If we say that it is between both,this is to say nothing at all, for were itbetween both, it would be in a place, and

this presents the same difficulty. But move-ment means to be in this place and notto be in it; this is the continuity of spaceand time—and it is this which first makesmotion possible.” (Pp. 321--322)

Movement is the presence of a body ina definite place at a given moment andin another place at another, subsequentmoment—such is the objection which Cher-nov repeats (see hisPhilosophical Studies)in the wake ofallthe “metaphysical”opponents of Hegel.This objection isincorrect:(1) it de-scribes theresultof motion, but not mo-tionitself;(2) it does not show, it doesnot contain in itself thepossibilityof mo-tion; (3) it depicts motion as a sum, asa concatenation of states ofrest, that isto say, the (dialectical) contradiction isnot removed by it, but only concealed,shifted, screened, covered over.

“What makes the difficulty is alwaysthought alone, since it keeps apart the mo-ments of an object which in their separa-tion are really united.” (322)

We cannot imagine, express, measure,depict movement, without interrupting con-tinuity, without simplifying, coarsening,dismembering, strangling that which is liv-

ing. The representation of movement bymeans of thought always makes coarse,kills,—and not only by means of thought,but also by sense-perception, and not onlyof movement, but every concept.And in that lies theessenceof dialectics.And preciselythis essenceis ex-pressed by the formula: the unity, identityof opposites.

3. “The flying arrow rests.”

And Aristotle's answer: the errorarises from the assumption that “timeconsists of the individual Nows” (έχτών νϋν) p. 324.

4. Half is equal to the double: motion

measured in comparison with an un-moving body and in comparison witha body moving in theoppositedirection.

At the end of the § on Zeno, Hegel com-pares him toKant(whoseantinomies, hesays, “do no more than Zeno did here”).

The general conclusion of the dialecticof the Eleatics: “the truth is the one, allelse is untrue”—“just as the Kantian phi-losophy resulted in “We know appearancesonly.” On the whole the principle is thesame.” (p. 326)

But there is also a difference.

“In Kant it is the spiritual that de-stroys the world; according to Zeno, theworld of appearance in itself and for itselfhas no truth. According to Kant, it is ourthought, our spiritual activity that is bad;—it shows excessive humility of mind to be-lieve that knowledge has no value....”(327)

The continuation of the Eleatics in Leu-cippus and among theSophists...

After Zeno (? he livedafterHeracli-tus?)[24]Hegel 
	  passes on to Heraclitus andsays:“It” (Zeno’s dialectics) “may, to thatextent, also be called subjective dialec-tics, insofar as it rests in the contemplativesubject, and the one, without this dialec-tics, without this movement, is one ab-stract identity....” (328)

but it was previously said, see thepassage quoted from p. 309, andothers, that Zeno’s dialectics isob-jectivedialectics. Here is some kindof superfine “distinguo.” Cf. thefollowing:

“Dialectics: (α) external dialectics,a reasoning which goes hither andthither, without reaching the soul of the

thing itself; (β) the immanent dialecticsof the object, but (NB) following withinthe contemplation of the subject; (γ) theobjectivity of Heraclitus, i.e., dialecticsitself taken as principle.” (328)

(In Heraclitus): “Here we see land; there is

no proposition of Heraclitus whichI would not have adopted in myLog-ic....” (328)

“Heraclitus says: Everything is be-coming; this becoming is the principle.This is contained in the expression: Beingno moreisthan not-Being....” (p. 333)

“The recognition of the fact that Beingand not-Being are only abstractions de-void of truth, that the first truth is to befound only in Becoming, forms a great ad-vance. The understanding comprehends bothas having truth and validity in isolation;reason on the other hand recognises the onein the other, and sees that in the one itsother” (NB “its other”) “is contained—that is why the All, the Absolute is to bedetermined as Becoming.” (334)

“Aristotle says (De mundo,[26]Chapter 5)

that Heraclitus ‘joined together thecomplete whole and the incomplete’(part)” ... “what coincides and whatconflicts, what is harmonious and whatdiscordant; and from out of them all(the opposite) comes one, and fromone, all.” (335)

Plato, in hisSymposium,[27]puts forwardthe views of Heraclitus (inter alia in theirapplication to music: harmony consistsof opposites), and the statement: “The artof the musician unites the different.”

Hegel writes: this is no objection againstHeraclitus (336), for difference is the es-sence of harmony:

“This harmony is precisely absolute Be-coming, change,—not becoming other, nowthis and then an other. The essentialthing is that each different thing, eachparticular, is different from another, notabstractly so from any other, but fromitsother. Each particular only is, insofaras its other is implicitly contained in itsNotion....”

“So also in the case of tones; they mustbe different, but so that they can alsobe united....” (336) P. 337: incidentallySextus Empiricus (and Aristotle) are reckon-ed among the ... “best witnesses”....

Heraclitus said: “die Zeit ist das erstekörperliche Wesen”[28](Sextus Empiricus)—p. (338)

körperliche[29]—an “unfortunate” expres-sion (perhaps, Hegel says (NB), it waschosen by a sceptic (NB),—but time, hesays, is “das erste sinnliche Wesen”[30]....

...“Time is pure Becoming, as per-ceived....” (338)

In regard to the fact that Heraclitusconsidered fire as a process, Hegel says:“Fire is physical time, it is this absoluteunrest” (340)—and further, in regard tothe natural philosophy of Heraclitus:

...“It” (Natur) “is process in itself....”(344) “Nature is the never-resting, andthe All is the transition out of theone into the other, from division intounity, and from unity into division....”(341)“To understand Nature means to rep-resentitas process....” (339)

Here is what is said to be the narrow-

ness of natural scientists:

...“we listen to their account“ (Natur-forscher[31]), “they only observe and saywhat they see; but this is not true, for un-consciously they transform what is im-mediately seen by means of the Notion.

And the strife is not due to the opposi-

tion between observation and the absoluteNotion, but between the limited rigidnotion and the Absolute Notion. Theyshow that changes are non-existent....”(344-345)

...“Water in its decomposition re-veals hydrogen and oxygen: these havenot arisen for they were already thereas such, as the parts of which the waterconsists” (thus Hegel mimics the na-tural scientists)....

“As we find in all expression of per-ception and experience; as soon as menspeak, there is a Notion present, itcannot be withheld, for in conscious-ness there is always a touch of univer-sality and truth.”

Quite right and important—it is pre-cisely this that Engels repeated in morepopular form, when he wrote that natu-ral scientists ought to know that the re-sults of natural science are concepts, andthat the art of operating with conceptsis not inborn, but is the result of 2,000years of the development of natural scienceand philosophy.[32]The concept of transformation is takennarrowly by natural scientists and theylack understanding of dialectics.

...“He” (Heraclitus) “is the one who firstexpressed the nature of the infinite, andwho first understood nature as infinite initself, i.e., its essence as process....” (346)

On the “concept of necessity”—cf. p.347. Heraclitus could not see truth in“sensuous certainty” (348), but in “necessity”(είμαρμένη[33])—((λόγοζ[34])).

NB||“Absolute mediation” (348)

“The rational, the true, that which Iknow, is indeed a withdrawal from theobjective as from what is sensuous, individ-ual, definite and existent; but what rea-son knows within itself is just as muchnecessity or the universalof being; it isthe essence of thought as it is the essenceof the world.” (352)

368: “The development of philosophy in

history must correspond to the de-velopment of logical philosophy; butthere will still be passages in the lat-ter which are absent in historical de-velopment.”

Here there is a very profound and cor-rect, essentially materialist thought (ac-tual history is the basis, the foundation,the Being, which isfollowedby conscious-ness).

Leucippus says that atoms are invisible“because of the smallness of their body”(369)—Hegel, however, replies that thisis “Ausrede”[35](ibid.), that 
	  “Eins”[36]cannotbe seen, that “das Princip des Eins” “ganzideell”[37](370), and that Leucippus is no“empiricist”, but an idealist.

([Straining to make Leucippus conformto his Logic, Hegel expatiates on the impor-tance, the “greatness” of the principle (368)Fürsichsein,[38]descrying it in Leucippus.It savours in part of stretching a point.][39]

But there is also a grain of truth in it;the nuance (the “moment”) of separateness;the interruption of gradualness; the mo-ment of the smoothing out of contradic-tions; the interruption of continuity—theatom, the one. (Cf. 371 i.f.):—“The oneand continuity are opposites....”

Hegel’s logic cannot beappliedin itsgiven form, it cannot betakenas given.Onemustseparate outfrom itthe logical (epistemological) nuances, afterpurifying them fromIdeenmystik[40]: thatis still a big job.)

“The Atomists are, therefore, generallyspeaking, opposed to the idea of the crea-tion and maintenance of the world bymeans of a foreign principle. It is in thetheory of atoms that natural science firstfeels released from the need for demonstrat-ing a foundation for the world. For if natureis represented as created and held togetherby another, then it is conceived of as notexistent in itself, and thus as having itsNotion outside itself, i.e., its basis isforeign to it, it has no basis as such, it isonly conceivable from the will of another—as it is, it is contingent, devoid of ne-cessity and Notion in itself. In the ideaof the atomists, however, we have the con-ception of the inherency of nature, that isto say, thought finds itself in it....” (372-373)

In the presentation—according to Dio-genes Laertius, IX, § 31-33—of the atomismof Leucippus, the “vortex” (Wirbel— 
	  δίνην)[41]of atoms, Hegel finds nothing of interest(“no interest,” ...“empty representation,”“dim, confused ideas”—p. 377 i.f.).

Hegel’s blindness, the one-sidedness ofthe Idealist!!

Democritus is behandelt[42]by Hegel ina very stiefmütterlich[43]fashion, in allpp. 378-380! The spirit of materialism isintolerable to the idealist!! The words ofDemocritus are quoted (p. 379):

“Warmth exists according to opin-ion (νόμφ) and so do cold and colour,sweet and bitter; only the indivisibleand the void are in accordance withtruth (έτεή)” (Sextus Empiricus,Ad-versus Mathematicos, VII, § 135).[44]

And the conclusion is drawn:

...“We see this much, that Demo-critus expressed the difference betweenthe moments of Being-in-itself andBeing-for-other more distinctly....”(380)

By this “the way is at once opened up”to “the bad idealism,” that ... “meineEmp-findung,mein....”[45]

...“A sensuously notionless manifold offeeling is established, in which there isno reason, and with which this idealismhas no further concern.”

Anaxagoras. Noΰς[47]“the cause of the worldand of all order,” and Hegel elucidates this:

...“Objective thought ... reason in theworld, also in nature—or as we speak ofgenera in nature, they are the universal.A dog is an animal, this is its genus, itssubstantial; the dog itself is this. Thislaw, this understanding, this reason isitself immanent in nature, it is the essenceof nature; the latter is not formed fromwithout as men make a chair.” (381-382)

“Noΰς is the same as soul (Aristotleon Anaxagoras)—p. 394

and ...[48]the elucidation of this1eapfrom the general in natureto thesoul; from objective to subjec-tive, from materialism to idealism.C’est ici que ces extrêmes se touchent(et se transforment!)[49]

On the homoeomeriae[50]of Anaxagoras(particles of the same kind as the wholebody) Hegel writes:“Transformation is to be taken in a

double sense, according to existence andaccording to the Notion....” (403-404)Thus, for instance, it is said that watercan be removed—the stones remain; bluecolour can be removed, red, etc., willremain.

“This is only according to existence;according to the Notion, they only inter-penetrate, it is inner necessity.” Just asone cannot remove the heart by itself fromthe living body without the lungs perish-ing, etc.

“Nature likewise exists only in unity,just as the brain exists only in unity withthe other organs” (404)

whereby some conceive transformationin the sense of the presence of smallqualitatively determined particles andtheir growth (respective diminution)[combination and separation]. Theother conception (Heraclitus)—thetransformation of theoneinto another.(403)

Existence and Notion—are to be dis-tinguished in Hegel approximately asfollows: fact (Being) taken separately,torn from its connection, and connection(the Notion), mutual relation, concat-enation, law, necessity.

415: ...“The Notion is that which thingsare in and for themselves....”

Hegel speaks of grass being the end foranimals, and the latter for men, etc., etc.,and concludes:“It is a circle which is complete in itself,but whose completion is likewise a passinginto another circle; a vortex whose mid-point, that into which it returns, is founddirectly in the periphery of a higher circlewhich swallows it up....” (414)

So far the ancients are said to have fur-nished little: “Universal is a meagre deter-mination; everyone knows of the univer-sal, but not of it as essence.” (416)

“But here we have the beginning ofa more distinct development of the relation-ship of consciousness to Being, the de-velopment of the nature of knowledge asa knowledge of the true.” (417) “The mindhas gone forth to express essence as thought.“(418)

“We see this development of the univer-sal, in which essence goes right over to theside of consciousness, in the so much de-cried worldly wisdom of the Sophists.”(418)

((End of the first volume))[The secondvolume begins with the Sophists.]

[1]The Ionic school, or Miletian school (from the town
	  of Miletus, trading and cultural centre of the ancient world on the coast of
	  Asia Minor), was the earliest school of naturalistic materialism (6th century
	  B.C.) in the history of Greek philosophy. (SeeF. Engels,Dialectics of 
	  Nature, Moscow, 1954, p. 250.)

[2]Pythagorean philosophy(6th-4th. century 
	  B.C.)—an idealist philosophy that considered the essence of all things
	  to lie in numbers. Named after Pythagoras, the founder of a philosophical,
	  religious and political league in Crotona (Southern Italy) that fought for
	  the supremacy of the aristocracy.

[4]Aristotle’sworkDe coelo (On the Heavens)belongs to his natural-philosophic writings and consists of four books that
	  are subdivided into chapters. In modern editions, these books are designated
	  by Roman nvmerals and the chapters by Arabic ones.

[5]Antichthon—Ed.

[6]The number ten was viewed by the Pythagoreans as
	  sacred, as the most perfect number, embracing the entire nature of numbers.

[7]“the soul is solar dust”—Ed.

[8]Aristotle’s workDe anima (On the Soul)belongs to his natural-philosophic writings and consists of three books.

[9]TheEleaticschool(end of 6th-5th century
	  B.C.) was named after the town of Elea in Southern Italy. In contradistinction
	  to the natural dialectic teachings of the Miletian school, and ofHeraclitus,
	  regarding the changeable nature of things, the Eleatic school believed in 
	  their indivisible, immovable, unchangeable, homogeneous, continuous, eternal
	  essence. At the same time, some of the propositions of representatives of 
	  the Eleatic school, and particularly the proofs advanced byZenoconcerning
	  the contradictoriness of motion (the so-called paradoxes of Zeno), despite
	  their metaphysical conclusions, played a positive role in the development of
	  ancient dialectics, having raised the problem of expressing in logical concept
	  the contradictory character of the processes of motion.

[10]In the Eleatic school—Ed.

[12]determinations, not definitions—Ed.

[13]Determinationis the comprehensive conception
	  of the object which characterises its essential aspects and connections with
	  the surrounding world and the laws of its development.Definition,
	  in this case, is the abstract formal-logical determination that takes into
	  account only the external features of the object.

[14]See F. Engels,Anti-Dühring, Moscow, 1959,
	  p. 21. Also seep. 264of this volume.

[15]The reference is to the work of Diogenes Laertius,Lives and Opinions of Famous Philosophers, consisting of ten books.
	  It was published in ancient Greek by G. Gübner, Vols. 1-2, Leipzig, 1830-33.

[16]The reference is to the work of Sextus Empiricus,Basic Tenets of Pyrrhonism, in three books.

[17]in potentiality—Ed.

[18]inactuality—Ed.

[19]The reference is to Pierre Bayle,Dictionnaire
	  historique et critique (Historical and Critical Dictionary), 4 Vols., 
	  Amsterdam and Leyden,	1740.

[20]pitiful—Ed.

[21]“Thisifis good!”—Ed.

[22]Lenin has in mind the French translation of the
	  first volume of Theodor Gomperz’s workGriechische Denker (Greek Thinkers).

[23]The reference is to § 1 of the book byV. Chernov,Philosophical	and Sociological Studies, Moscow, 1907.

[24]Heraclitus(c. 530-470 B.C.) lived prior to Zeno
	  of Elea (c. 490-480 B.C.). Hegel discusses Heraclitus after the Eleatics because
	  his philosophy, especially his dialectics, was superior to that of the Eleatics,
	  in particular, the dialectics of Zeno. Whereas Eleatic philosophy embodied,
	  in Hegel’s view, the category of being, Heraclitus’ philosophy
	  was an historical expression of the higher, more concrete and genuine category
	  of becoming. This is an example of how Hegel “adapted” the history
	  of philosophy to fit the categories of his logic. At the same time Hegel’s
	  treatment of Heraclitus and the Eleatics reflected the actual law-governed
	  nature of the history of philosophy as a science. Such deviations from the
	  chronological order are quite legitimate in examining the history of individual
	  aspects or categories of philosophy, since in this case their development
	  emerges in a form free from historical accident. Lenin wrote the following
	  in his fragmentOn the Question of Dialecticsabout the “circles”
	  in philosophy: “Ancient: from Democritus to Plato and the dialectics
	  of Heraclitus” and remarks: “Is a chronology of persons essential?
	  No!” (See present volume,p. 360.)

[25]semblance, show—Ed.

[26]The workDe mundo (On the Universe),
	  included in Aristotle’s collected works, was written after Aristotle’s
	  death by an unknown author at the end of the 1st or beginning of the 2nd 
	  century A.D.

[27]Symposium (Feast)—a dialogue byPlato.

[28]“Time is the first corporeal 
	  essence.”—Ed.

[29]corporeal—Ed.

[30]“the first sensuous essence”—Ed.

[31]of natural scientists—Ed.

[32]See F. Engels,Anti-Dühring, Moscow,
	  1959, pp. 21-22.

[33]fate—Ed.

[34]logos—Ed.

[35]“subterfuge”—Ed.

[36]“One”—Ed.

[37]“the principle of the One” is “altogether
	  ideal”—Ed.

[38]Being-for-itself—Ed.

[39]In Lenin’s manuscript these five lines have
	  been crossed out.—Ed.

[40]mysticism of ideas—Ed.[Back to note #14]

[41]Diogenes Laertius (p. 
	  235)—“vertiginem”—Latin translation.—Ed.

[42]treated—Ed.

[43]step-motherly—Ed.

[44]The reference is to the work of Sextus Empiricus,Against Mathematicians, consisting of 11 books, six of which are
	  devoted to a critique of grammar, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy
	  and music, and five (Against Dogmatists) to a critique of logic,
	  physics and ethics.

[45]“myfeeling,mine”

[46]A critique of the subjective idealist teachings
	  ofMachon sensations
	  was presented by Lenin in his bookMaterialism and
	  Empirio-Criticism, Chapter 1, §§ 1 and 2 (V. I. Lenin,Materialism
	  and Empirio-Criticism, Moscow, 1960, pp. 32-61).

[47]reason—Ed.

[48]A word has remained undeciphered here.—Ed.

[49]“It is here that these extremes come into
	  contact (and are transformed!).—Ed.

[50]Homoeomeriae — according to Aristotle, a
	  term used by Anaxagoras to denote tiny material elements consisting in their
	  turn of an infinite number of smaller particles and containing all existing
	  properties (“all in everything”). The elements themselves are
	  inert and set in motion by νοΰς (mind, reason), believed
	  by Anaxagoras to be a kind of fine and light matter. He explained any emergence
	  and destruction by the junction and separation of elements. In the extant
	  fragments of Anaxagoras’ works these elements are called “seeds”
	  or “things”; the term homoeomeriae was introduced by Aristotle.